Yummy Flashback Brought To the Present

Here we are on the third day of the New Year, and I still haven't run (insert big smile *here*.). It's not that I don't want to (because I kinda do), but the time has been well used. So, who can complain? On today's morning agenda: sleeping in after a really late night! I enjoyed both endeavors completely! This morning was followed by a good balance of real life (paying bills and grocery lists ... both ewww ...) as well as more craft time with Pit Crew #2 plus a round of "Extreme Life" with the whole fam. (Extreme Life = the game of Life we had as kids but pumped up. I'm not a huge fan of fixing what ain't broke, but this new version is very fun. And not just because I won big time.)

As a snippet of the day did include meal planning (seriously ... eww ... it does bore me so), I wanted to share a dish I made from one of the many Trim Healthy Mama bloggers out there because it was easy and fantastic! It looks like this:

I know. Easy, right? You can tell by looking. But, it's a dish I didn't think possible given such things as regular noodles are off the table (literally). But, Dreamfields pasta to the rescue (higher protein and fiber, thank you very much), and this is a flashback to one of my favorite memories with Aaron ...

Cue the flashback twinkly sounds: When Aaron and I were first married and predictably pretty broke, we had access to credit to a convenience store because of my job. One day, we picked up a box of cheeseburger Hamburger Helper. I have no idea what possessed us to do this except for the fact that it was, effectively, free. Aaron had never had it, and I certainly had not as boxed foods like that around my house growing up were shunned. You can guess it was a huge disappointment to my parents for them to discover I loved box cake mix after their years of baking them from scratch. But, I digress ...

I still remember making that cheeseburger Hamburger Helper, and I still remember Aaron's and my astonishment that it tasted fantastic!! Gourmet, it was not, but it was TASTY. We never bought it again, though. Look, there are some things I simply can't explain.

So, fast forward almost 20 years, and I've definitely nixed boxed dinner helpers as well as white breads and noodles and the such from the house. And, then, one day, I stumble across this recipe and crave it just reading it. It's as simple as a pound of ground turkey, fully cooked and drained, mixed with the cooked noodles (about 6 ounces for the pound of meat). Add to that 2 cups of cheddar cheese, garlic powder to taste (I used almost a tablespoon), 2 tablespoons of taco seasoning and just enough almond milk (in my case, a little less than a quarter cup) to make a bit of a sauce.

The verdict: DELISH. Aaron agreed that it tasted just as good as that little box we devoured back in the day. I'm going to make a batch then have it in the fridge to spoon out for a quick lunch. That'll easily take me through a week if I don't get any help eating it. Which means I will likely need to hide it (hahahaha).

Part of this week of The Return To Normal will be to figure out a handful of make-aheads to keep stashed in the fridge. It'll just make my life a little easier. And, yes, I know I'm way behind the curve in terms of how many people already do this. Better late than never!

And, tomorrow? We run for real!! I'll be checking in after ...